Wireless communication devices are incredibly widespread in today's society. For example, people use cellular phones, smart phones, personal digital assistants, laptop computers, pagers, tablet computers, etc. to send and receive data wirelessly from countless locations. Moreover, advancements in wireless communication technology have greatly increased the versatility of today's wireless communication devices, enabling users to perform a wide range of tasks from a single, portable device that conventionally required either multiple devices or larger, non-portable equipment.
A mobile device communicates within a cellular communications environment via a system of network cells that provide communication coverage for corresponding geographic areas. Such networks conventionally include macrocells, which provide communication coverage for a substantially large geographic area (e.g., covering a radius of over 2 km, etc.). To improve network coverage and capacity for a more limited area, such as that corresponding to a building or other indoor area, smaller scale cells, such as femtocells, may be employed. A femtocell connects to an associated communications network via a broadband connection (e.g., digital subscriber line (DSL), cable, fiber-optic, etc.) to extend coverage of the communications network to a limited number of devices within a coverage area of the femtocell.
In conventional proximity-based femtocell search, a mobile device memorizes the proximity of an accessible femtocell it encounters. Based on this memorized proximity, the mobile device initiates a search for that femtocell when the device returns into the proximity of the femtocell. However, the memorized proximity of a femtocell may become obsolete, and as a consequence no longer valid, if the femtocell is relocated, shut down, etc. Further, as a mobile device stores proximity information only for femtocells that have previously been visited, the mobile device may utilize significant resources in searching for and locating new femtocells. Further, the mobile device may be configured to report such invalid proximity information to its associated network, which may adversely impact the capacity of the network.